I plan to post at least one X-rated story I’ve written. I may only post one because thus far in my life, I’ve only written one. My one story thus far features M, the third of the three guys I’m focusing on in my collection of vignettes about sexuality and body image in my personal relationships. I wrote up this story when I was struggling to reconcile M’s hold on my erotic imagination vs. the reality of our relationship. I was totally into him and the promise of adventure held in our very dirty and shared sexual desires. But the reality was that we had a couple dates, slept together once, and then spent months in a bizarre internet-sexting relationship that goaded my body politics and frustrations with the male gaze, while also stringing me along, hoping that he would resume a real-life BDSM relationship with me.
But the M stories – both the true story of internet-subbing to M, and the fictional story of drinking M’s cum out of a cup – needs to wait for another Sunday. Before I post my meager attempt at writing a fictional/fictionalized dirty story, I feel it’s my responsibility to post about some real feminist erotica. So this week, I’m posting about I.G. Frederick. And in a couple weeks, I’ll be posting about one of my other favorite X-rated story writers.
As I did in my post from a few weeks ago about my friend’s kick-ass bondage porn site (Captive Cuties Online), I must disclose a conflict of interest about I.G. She is a friend. But I think my recommendation of and reflection on her erotic writing benefits from our personal interactions. Whenever I’ve hung out with her, she has always been full of life, spirit and sex-positivity. And the same qualities come out in her erotic writing.
I.G. writes novels and short stories, which you can find out more about on her web site: eroticawriter.net. I adore her short stories “Honeymoon” and “Benjamin” – they are both prime examples of feminist porn, in my opinion. Dirty and explicit – they are deliciously X-rated and pornographic, even if we never see anything but imaginary naked flesh because all the nudity and fucking is described in words. And they are definitely my kind of feminism – I.G. cleverly includes feminist personal /political issues in a positive and entertaining way. “Honeymoon” is a story inspired by my number one feminist personal/political obsession: the relationship between women’s appearances and people’s sexuality … or ultimately, in the case of Allison, the fictional narrator of the story, the lack of relationship between her apparently average appearance and the sexual desire her new, handsome husband and his gorgeous swinger friends have for her. I’m a sucker for a story that not only makes my clit throb but also artfully makes the point that sex appeal is in the eye of the beholder.
And “Benjamin” – well, that story appeals to my love of gender role reversals and romance. Submissive man. Dominant woman. Obstacles to love. Steamy sex scenes in which his cock doesn’t penetrate her. Nope, her pussy is most definitely in charge, mounting and taking him passionately.
So I consider I.G. to be a fellow feminist pornographer. But does she consider herself to be one?
I emailed I.G. a few weeks ago, letting her know I was working on a post about her work. In the email, I said:
I have an interview question for you … no right or wrong answer on this one … you can take the question seriously if you’d like, you can answer simply with a yes or no, or you can answer at length. But first and foremost, I ask it because I consider it a fun question to fit the theme of my site. Do you consider yourself a feminist pornographer?
Her initial response was excellent:
I would be happy to answer the question seriously, IF I knew what you considered the definition of feminist pornographer?
Getting me to think through my own identity more deeply – I.G. is a sharp cookie.
I replied:
Oooh, this is good already. On the one hand, I want to reply by saying who cares what I think the definition is. In a post about your writing, your definition is what really matters.But, that would probably be annoying for me to stop there. I have a really broad definition. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say I have no definition at all. I think “pornography” can be a whole lot more than naked pictures — erotica, dirty stories, X-rated writing can be called pornography, even if we first think of images when we think of porn — and by deduction, a writer could be a pornographer. In my view, identifying as a feminist is like Dossie Easton’s and Janet Hardy’s discussion of identifying as a top or a bottom or a submissive or a dominant or whatever — you get to decide your identity. No one else gets to tell you you’re not a real top because you don’t do X. No one else gets to tell you that you are or are not a feminist.
Well, I.G. liked my “definition” and my original question a lot – I.G. said, “I had to think about your question, which makes me glad you asked it. I’ve always taken pride in my feminism. It’s time I took pride in pornography as well.” She liked it so much that she wanted to write about the question properly … in a post of her own. What an honor! To have inspired a thoughtful, interesting and well-researched post by a writer I admire. I.G. reveals that she does consider herself a feminist pornographer, which is way cool. But even cooler … I.G. delves into a bunch of fundamental issues about feminism and pornography that I have neglected in my own writing. And she does a much better job than I would have at laying out these fundamentals. Super cool. Now I don’t have to sweat over a post about those core issues between feminism and pornography and I don’t have to fret about living up to my promise of X-rated stories at feministpornographer.com – I can just point you to I.G.’s blog and her feminist pornography.
